Lexmark C 510

...I had no experience of Lexmark equipment previously but would have absolutely no problem in recommending this printer to anyone.
It is clearly aimed at small or home run businesses but really anyone who produces a lot of printed copy would do well to consider one of these.
As a creative artist I look for equipment which will faithfully reproduce my work and make my productive life easier, the Lexmark c510 has fulfilled this tenfold ...
...Seriously, it's not that much bother really, I just want to be flash.


I hope this little update is of use to anyone looking at purchasing the Lexmark c510. It really is a great printer and was a fantastic price. I can't recommend it enough.  ... more

I spent a long time reasearching which colour laser printer to buy and time after time, this one ended up top of my list.
I make handmade wedding stationery so was looking for a machine that would take heavier weight paper and card. The c510 takes 216gsm, no other colour laser in this price range would do that. A rush job finally drove me to take the plunge into purchasing the c510, as my inkjet was just going to take too long to churn out the order.

BUYING
I decided to purchase the unit from a local store as I needed it that day and the price was not much more than the best online price including delivery and VAT. I paid £339 and £15 for a USB cable.
The first thing that struck me was the weight of the unit, even after decanting it from all the packaging, it weighs in at a hefty 31Kg. I was on my own and discovered that the delivery options did not include someone carrying up to my 3rd floor flat. Not to be discouraged, I dragged it into a taxi and back to the house. After being creative with some rope and making a carryling sling, I managed to get it up the stairs (some survival training and sheer determination involved there). I do recommend that this is a two man lift and not to be attempted by anyone with a hernia or back condition.

POSITIONING
There is no way this guy can live on your desktop but I'm not really sure why you would want it on there in the first place. It's not unattractive, it's just, practical. I have a super sleek white imac so a large beige box just isn't going to cut it.
A sheet of hardboard on the floor serves perfectly as it's base and it now lives rather happily under the desk (it's a good footrest too) Unlike an inkjet, you don't have to feed it very often, so it being hidden away isn't a major problem.

SET-UP
The first task is to remove all the travelling tape which holds all the doors, flaps and moving bits together. Take your time on this as there are a couple of bits hidden under the toner cartridges. This done, you then get to load the toner.
This printer ships with 4 starter cartridges (black, cyan, magenta & yellow) they print around 1500 sheets at 5% coverage (yet to prove this). This is a feature that none of the others on my list offered, meaning I would have had to shell out a further £250 just to get started.
Replacement cartridges for the c510 come in standard (3,000 pages @ 5% coverage) and high yield (5,000 pages @ 5% coverage). The prices are quite low for toner cartridges in comparison to the other models I looked at. In store they were £79 each for the standard cartridges and, online, I have found the high yield ones for that price.
The toner cartridges loaded quickly and easily, the slots were easy to access from the front door and the whole process was simple and non-messy.

The next thing is unpacking and loading the photodeveloper cartridge. The manual did give a few warnings about how delicate this thing was (and it retails at around £150 for a new one), so I was a bit nervous about dealing with it. Truth was, it was fine. It slotted in neatly, without fuss and I could breath again.

SOFTWARE
Lastly I connected the power lead and USB cable (not supplied) and switched it on.
There was a fair bit of clunking and gurgling but it was ready for action in about a minute.
I am using Mac OS 10.3 and so fully expected everything to just work and I was not disappointed. The computer saw the c510 instantly and knew what to do with it.
The c510 ships with a couple of CD's containing the drivers, utilities and documentation as well as a printed manual in various languages. I haven't touched these discs yet as I didn't need to install any drivers, so cannot comment on the content.

PRINTING
I went straight into printing my brochure. 120 copies of double sided A4 including colour photos. I do not have the optional duplex unit (which enables automatic double sided printing) but, even with feeding the paper through twice, all 120 double sided sheets were reeled off in under 25 mins. My inkjet on photo quality settings would have struggled to produce that in under 4 hours.

The quality of the print was much higher than I expected. The text was crisp and clear and the colour photos were of a standard way beyond my expectations. Although I would not use the laser for producing actual photo prints, I am more than impressed with the colour reproduction, clarity and contrast. Another added benefit over inkjet is that the toner is water resistant.

There was a fair amount of noise and heat generated by the unit when it was working but I did not find it unduly excessive or annoying. After the job is finished, the printer goes into a power saver mode so the noise is negligable.

WOW!
What a great machine. I had no experience of Lexmark equipment previously but would have absolutely no problem in recommending this printer to anyone.
It is clearly aimed at small or home run businesses but really anyone who produces a lot of printed copy would do well to consider one of these.
As a creative artist I look for equipment which will faithfully reproduce my work and make my productive life easier, the Lexmark c510 has fulfilled this tenfold and all for a price less than I paid for my photo inkjet.

IN SUMMARY
Pros:
Excellent price for the specs
Ships with starter toner cartridges
Works straight out the box (Mac OSX)
Clear manual

Cons:
Heavy
Noisier than an inkjet
Functional design (but who cares)

*****************
UPDATE 17/04/06
*****************
It's been just over a year since I got this printer (I can't believe it's been that long) so I thought it was time for a short update.

I got the first dreaded "Toner low" warning last week. The black cartridge is due for replacement. The reason for the terror this warning invokes, is the sheer cost of replacing the 4 cartridges.
I've been shopping around and Amazon seem to do the best prices for Standard Yield cartridges at the moment (bizarre, but true) .....

Standard Yield (C,M,Y - 3,000 pages at 5% coverage, Black - 3,500 pages)
Cyan 20K0500 - £64.14
Magenta 20K0501 - £64.14
Yellow 20K0502 - £64.14
Black 20K0503 - £57.47
(all are eligible for free Super Saver Delivery)

Best prices for High Yield cartridges are as follows (from various suppliers)
HIgh Yield (C,M,Y - 6,500 pages at 5% coverage, Black - 10,000 pages)
Cyan 20K1400 - £113.62 (£4.64 delivery dnsystems.co.uk)
Magenta 20K1401 - £113.62 (£4.64 delivery dnsystems.co.uk)
Yellow 20K1402 - £100.15 (free delivery Amazon.co.uk)
Black 20K1403 - £88.95 (£4.64 delivery dnsystems.co.uk)

There are, of course, much cheaper options to be found on Amazon Marketplace and eBay if you choose to buy refurbished or compatibles. I nearly killed myself carrying the printer up the stairs, I'm not about to risk that again so I am sticking to geniune cartridges no matter the cost.
I have since bought a replacement black standard cartridge which I found on eBay for £40 (plus £5 delivery). It hasn't gone in the machine yet as, being a true Scot, I intend to shake the life out of the current one first.

I would also recommend recycling the old cartridges. You can hand them in at one of those cartridge refill shops. I checked with a local branch and they said they would be happy to take them as it was one model they couldn't cater for as there was a shortage of cartridges to refill. So not only would you be helping the environment and a small local business, but you would also be helping those who do not want to pay full price for genuine cartridges. It's a win, win, win situation.

I got a lot of use from the starter cartridges supplied with the machine as I have printed about 3,000 sheets to make colour brochures. These involve a lot of photos.
I hope this will give you an idea of the amount of use I have had from the machine and the potential running costs.

***

As for the machine's performance itself......

I've had the odd sheet feed problem and ended up with a wrinkled, but beautifully printed, piece of paper. This has happened about 7 times so it's not exactly an issue.

I was experimenting with feeding it cardstock and forgot to change the paper settings in the c510's menu system. This resulted in toner being smeared on the fuser as the card didn't go through correctly. Potentially this could have been a major problem resulting in me having to replace the fuser unit at massive expense but I got a ream of paper and left the machine feeding all 500 sheets through blank. The first 50 sheets picked up the excess toner, cleaned the unit and left me with some scrap paper to scribble on.

I have encountered no other problems with the printer other than wanting to save up for the Duplex unit (£350) to enable single feed, double sided printing.
I do double sided print at the moment but you have to put the paper back in the tray the right way up. How terribly archaic! Seriously, it's not that much bother really, I just want to be flash.

I hope this little update is of use to anyone looking at purchasing the Lexmark c510. It really is a great printer and was a fantastic price. I can't recommend it enough. 

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